


Shake It Out

by pornographicrainbowlegs



Series: Infliction [3]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Brother Feels, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Samulet, Wingfic, Wings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-10
Updated: 2013-06-15
Packaged: 2017-12-14 14:31:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/837945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pornographicrainbowlegs/pseuds/pornographicrainbowlegs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shaking the devil isn't as easy as it seems. Also, brother feels.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The door to the motel opens, swinging and crashing into the wall before ricocheting back. “Fuck.” The curse sounds familiar, as do the hands that begin pulling on Sam’s body, rough and calloused and warm.

“Dean,” Sam whimpers weakly, but doesn’t open his eyes.

“Shh, Sammy, I got you now,” Dean replies back, but he sounds shaky and scared. Sam knows what he must be scared of. The dirty feathers scattered about the room look like depraved confetti. Spurts of blood sprayed across the wall, and a full on puddle of it beneath him. Sam looks like hell, and they both know it having been there before.

“It’s not as bad as it looks,” Sam wheezes out confidently, trying to make light of the scene.

“Shut your mouth, Sam,” Dean orders, releasing his brother gently. Dean assesses the damage, looking between his brother and the discarded wings. The wounds on Sam’s back are barely trickling blood, which comes as both a relief and a source of panic. He needs to stitch them shut. “I’ll be right back, Sammy,” Dean promises, followed by hisses of “Fuck” muttered under his breath.

Sam isn’t scared anymore. He doesn’t even remember being scared at all. Instead, he feels floaty and only vaguely aware of his body. He feels good, better than he has in years. Freer than he’s ever been, that’s for sure.

Dean returns, Sam’s not sure when. It can’t be long, he knows, because Dean wouldn’t keep him waiting, especially not now. But time doesn’t seem to be passing correctly at the moment. It must be the exhaustion and the pain, though he barely feels either anymore. “Come on, Sammy, help me roll you over. I gotta stitch these up,” Dean practically begs. So Sam does his best to help his brother heave himself onto his stomach to give Dean a better angle.

The older Winchester is stoic as he works, carefully using a towel to wipe away the bits of feather and dried blood before carefully stitching the first, relatively clean, wound. “Oh, Sammy,” he says, fingers trembling over the damage. “Why did you do this?”

Subconsciously, Sam knows Dean expects this to be a rhetorical question. He responds anyway. “Seemed like a good idea at the time.”

Dean doesn’t ask any more questions as he finishes the first set of stitches, his fingers now barely steady. Sam doesn’t protest or give any visible indication of pain. Dean is sure this is a bad sign but works diligently anyway. He has to move quickly, Sam has lost a lot of blood already. He ties off the last stitch and considers for a moment what to do about the second wound.

This one is much more jagged, with a small piece of bone still sticking through it. It seemed to still be twitching, as if it were waiting for the appendage to respond. Dean had to swallow back the bile creeping its way up his throat.

Sam flinches as Dean’s finger come in contact with the bone, the first outward display of pain, and Dean retracts his hands. He takes a few breaths and a swig from the vodka he’d been using as a disinfectant. This probably deserved a trip to the hospital. Hell, it probably was hospital worthy yesterday when Cas had retrieved Sam from the pit.

But there’s nothing he can do about that now. With the bones jutting from his back like this, there would likely be some sort of investigation – maybe even a prime-time Discovery Channel syndication if they were extra lucky.

“Sammy,” Dean says extra gentle. “I have to break it off more,” he whispers. “It’s just too jagged. I can’t sew you up like that.”

Sam doesn’t even blink. He just nods his head. “It’s okay,” he consoles. “Do what you have to.”

Dean gags again before taking another rip from the bottle of vodka. “Okay,” he repeats over and over again, his hands grabbing at his pants to rid himself of his belt. He folds it in half before sticking it between Sam’s teeth.

Sam bites down as firmly as he can in his weakened state. Dean looks back at the splinter of bone chipping out of the skin flap. It’s not large, barely wider than a few toothpicks. The Winchester glances around for something to use to break the piece off; his eyes landing on the demon knife next to Sam’s hip, nearly losing everything upon realization that this was the weapon his brother must have used initially. He bites his tongue, trying not to talk in case his words were taken as pity or fear.

He picks the knife up with shaking hands and uses the towel to clean off some of the blood from the hilt. “Okay,” Dean says again when he’s gotten up some nerve. “We’ll do it on the count of three.” He reaches his hand forward, holding the splinter steady with his left and using his right with the knife as a fulcrum. Sam’s already begun to flinch away from him. “Ready?” he asks, “One,” followed by a quick pulling and a wet snap from the bone.

Sam clamps down on the belt, letting out a howl of pain before going limp again. “It’s over, Sammy, it’s over. Now I can stitch you up, it’s over, it’s over,” Dean tries to comfort, reaching out to rub lower on Sam’s back for a moment before reaching for the needle to begin stitching the gash.

He finishes the stitches with shaky fingers, but immediately feels better now that Sam isn’t bleeding anymore. He pours more vodka on the wound before wiping it delicately and taping some gauze over the two nearly-matching set of stitches.

“Okay, buddy,” Dean whispers quietly, “let’s get you to the bed.”

Dean does his best not to disturb the wounds as he gently pulls Sam into his arms, slowly standing on his knees then to his feet before walking smoothly over to the bed and depositing his mostly catatonic brother on top of the sheets. Dean positions him on his side. The paleness of Sam’s skin makes Dean nervous, but now that the bleeding has stopped, he’s less concerned. Sam needs rest. Rest and lots of drugs for the pain.

And ice for those wounds. Dean checks the room one last time before heading to the ice machine. He’ll clean the mess of feathers for when his hands stop shaking.


	2. Chapter 2

Sam can barely see through the black haziness as he, literally, shakes himself barely half awake.

“Sammy, you have to drink something,” Dean says gently, his voice going grave with concern as he holds the water bottle near Sam’s mouth. Sam tries to take it from his brother, but can’t because his fingers are trembling too much. “Don’t,” Dean advises, “you’ll pull your shoulders.”

After a few swallows, Dean takes the water bottle back to replace it with a spoon full of yogurt. “Take this,” Dean adds, putting the yogurt in Sam’s mouth. Sam can taste the crushed up pill in the gelatinous mess coating his tongue, all sorts of bitter and chalky. He does his best to swallow, but his throat is thick with dehydration. He just wants to sleep; his shoulders give soft throbs in tune with his heartbeat and breathing.

“Dean?” he asks, his tongue feeling foreign and his stomach starting to churn.

“It’s okay Sammy, just swallow it down and you can go back to sleep. I promise,” Dean smiles back.

It takes a couple tries before the yogurt goes down. “That’s it, Sammy,” Dean sounds pleased. “Come on, a few sips of water, too.”

Sam takes a few more sips, some water dribbling out of his mouth by accident. His shoulders flair with pain causing a whimper to escape. “It hurts, Dean,” Sam mumbles pathetically.

“It’s okay, Sammy. The pills will kick in soon,” Dean replies, reaching down to rub Sam’s arm. “You cold? Want me to get a blanket?” he offers.

Sam’s shaking so hard he can’t answer. He screws his eyes shut and tries to quell his shivering. Dean pulls the blanket up over his shoulders. “Go back to sleep, bud.”

The next time Sam wakes up feels only slightly less confusing. “Dean?” he asks, cautiously to the dark room.

“Sammy?” Dean calls, sounding sleepy himself. “You okay?” he asks and Sam can hear the rustling from the bed beside him and a click before the lamp turns on. He blinks on the initial brightness before finding Dean’s face displaying concern.

“You’re here,” Sam says, though it sounds like more of a question because his brain hasn’t decided it is awake just yet.

“Yeah,” Dean replies, trying to smile to hide his anger and fear. “You’re lucky I am, too.” Dean turns to the bedside table to grab a baggie and pulls out a white pill. “Don’t move your arms,” he warns, taking the pill and uncapping the water bottle.

“I can do it myself,” Sam asserts, trying to lift his arm to reach for the items. They feel heavy and when he manages to get them barely an inch off the bed, his shoulder wrench with pain.

“Told you,” Dean replies, shoving the pill into Sam’s mouth followed by the lip to the water bottle for his brother to take a swig and wash the pill down.

“Jerk,” Sam manages after swallowing.

“Bitch,” Dean replies, but there’s a smile around the easy banter they’ve managed. Dean turns to the bedside table to hide the expression and grabs a protein shake. “Hungry?” he asks, turning back to Sam.

At Sam’s nod, Dean twists the cap and holds it in front of Sam’s mouth. 

The tilt of the bottle is shallow and the creamy shake flows into his mouth. He gets a few swallows before Dean pulls it back. “More?” he poses, raising his eyebrows. Sam shrugs, followed by an intense wince.

“Ouch.”

“Yeah,” Dean affirms as he recaps the bottle. “Don’t do that, it hurts.” He shrugs and tries to offer a half smirk, but it doesn’t come off nearly as light heartedly as intended.

Sam glares sideways at Dean. “Smartass.”

The banter is all gone now as Dean lowers himself to his own bed, still holding the protein shake with both hands, wringing it nervously. Sam watches his brother fiddle with the plastic as he fumbles through multiple facial expressions; Sam’s sure that Dean is trying to come up with an appropriate conversation starter to talk about the elephant on Sam’s shoulders.

Minutes seem to go by before Dean’s face slumps in defeat. He gathers himself before looking Sam in the eyes again. “Can I get you anything?”

Sam rolls his eyes. “Good talk,” he mentions sarcastically before turning his head on the pillow and attempting to fall asleep again.

Dean sighs hard, “Look, man, I’m not good at this stuff, okay?” Dean deposits the plastic bottle on the nightstand, the loud thud calling Sam’s attention better than his words. “I don’t know what to say to you.” Sam doesn’t answer, only attempting to shrug again and recognizing too late that the gesture shouldn’t be used for a long, long time.

“Whatever,” Sam replies, feeling like a petulant teen. His brain is fuzzy with the impact of the medication invading his system and the pain it doesn’t quite ebb away. Even if he wanted to have this conversation, now shouldn’t be the time anyway.

“No, not ‘whatever’,” Dean practically roars, complete with his best Sam imitation. “You nearly killed yourself! I only just got you back two days ago, and I almost lost you again. Don’t you dare ‘whatever’ me.”

Sam swivels his head back to stare at Dean. “I wasn’t trying to kill myself,” he reveals, eyes wide upon realizing what this situation must look like to someone not plagued by hallucinations of the devil, who has thankfully been absent since the whole Slice and Dice marathon.

“Sure looked like it,” Dean remarks offhandedly, shrugging away some of the harshness. He shifts uncomfortably on the bed before forcing out the next question, as though he’s afraid of the answer. “Why’d you do it then?”

Sam closes his eyes tight, trying to think through the fuzziness. He knows why he’d done it, even through the drugged up haze. He just isn’t sure how to navigate the whole I’m Seeing the Devil and That’s Probably a Bad Thing conversation. It wasn’t a conversation he was looking forward to sober.

“Sammy? You fall asleep on me?” Dean asks after another moment of silence.

Seeing an opportunity for tactful exodus of the absurdly distressing conversation, Sam doesn’t respond. Dean sighs. The bed creaks as Dean stands and leans across to pull the sheets over Sam’s shoulders to tuck his brother in. The bed creaks again when Dean sits back upon it, the switch clicks and the light dims out. “Goodnight, Sam.”


	3. Chapter 3

“Sammy,” a voice whispers close to Sam’s ear. “Sam _my_ ,” it says again with lips rubbing gently on the shell of his ear. “It’s time to wake up, sleepy head.”

Sam smiles warmly into the pillow, but when he tries to hug it closer, his shoulder blades twitch with pain and he opens his eyes. The face looking over him isn’t entirely unexpected, though it is completely unwelcome. “Good morning, sleeping beauty,” Lucifer says, pulling back and sticking his forked tongue out at Sam.

Mildly panicked, Sam swivels his head to look at where Dean is resting on top of the covers on his own bed, still sleeping, before looking back at the devil. “Go away,” he pleads.

“You’re what’s tying me to the earth, Sammy boy, I can’t leave you until you die,” Lucifer taunts.

Sam rolls over gently, mindful of the wounds on his shoulders and Lucifer’s proximity, before easing out of bed. He feels generally woozy, but the need for a morning leak forces him to gather his wits. “Where’re ya going, Sammy?” Lucifer follows like a puppy.

His shoulders ache with every step, throbbing with each pump of his heart, which also encourages the headache forming in his temples. His feet feel very heavy as he slides them across the floor, gathering static from the carpet while he attempts to lighten the throbbing. He feels a pang of guilt as he sees the stain on the carpet in the hall and the spatters on the wall. It looks like Dean attempted to clean up, and the feathers are all gone. But the left over stains are prominent and quite obviously blood. It’s a damn good thing he booked the room with a fake identity.

He doesn’t bother shutting the door upon arrival for it causing too much extra movement. He debates the pros and cons of sitting versus standing before lifting his arms so he can take aim, gritting his teeth against the rawness of his injuries.

Lucifer leans on the open frame of the door. “If I were still riding you, Sammy, these human tasks would be a thing of the past,” Lucifer informs him as he tilts the lever to flush.

“Sammy?” he hears Dean mumble from the main room. Sam looks expectantly at Lucifer, silently requesting the angel to move out of the door frame.

“Use your words, Sam,” Lucifer says, waggling his finger at the hunter.

“Sammy?” Dean asks again, louder this time, and Sam hears the bed rustle before a more urgent, “Sam, you’re okay, right?”

“Yeah, Dean, I’m fine,” Sam responds, still using his eyes to silently beg the angel to move from the doorway where he’s effectively trapping the human.

“What’re you doing out of bed?” Dean demands lightly, clearly walking closer if the volume of his voice is any indication.

Lucifer begins to chuckle, enjoying the look of panic on the hunter’s face. “Still scared of me, huh?” the angel challenges, stepping closer to the hunter. Sam takes a step back, running into the vanity behind him and crashing the cups, toothpaste, and first aid kit into the sink. His shoulders wrench, causing him to release a shout.

“Sammy!” Dean shouts, now sprinting the last few steps into the bathroom directly through the angel like he was made of smoke. “Now really, how rude,” Lucifer balks as Dean takes a hold of Sam’s now trembling hands.

“Dude, you’re shaking,” Dean observes, pulling his brother away from the vanity. He looks over Sam carefully, touching his forehead to check for fever before clasping his hands again. “Come on, back to bed with you.” 

Dean awkwardly aborts trying to put an arm over Sam’s shoulders and opts for putting it around his lower back to help assist him. He pulls Sam closer to walk them both out of the bathroom where Lucifer is standing in the doorway smirking at Sam. He lets himself be guided, trying to ignore the beaten in fear of the angel before him the closer he gets until he and his brother are through the door and working their way to the bed.

Once Sam is deposited back on the mattress, Dean busies himself with opening the pill bottle and another protein shake before shoving both of them at Sam. “I see you’re feeling better,” Dean comments along the way.

Sam glances at the foot of the bed, where the devil is now sitting cross legged. “Yeah,” he returns, eyes flicking back to meet Dean’s.

In some incredible cosmic timing, a flutter of wings is all the warning the two brothers received before Castiel appears in all his trench-coated glory. “Hello, Dean,” he says glancing at Dean before turning his head and nodding at Sam, “Sam.”

“Cas,” Dean exasperates. Cas twists his head back to the elder Winchester. “We’re kind of in the middle of some family business. Now’s not a good time.”

“My condolences,” Cas interjects, nodding his head forward in sardonic compassion. “But I must insist.”

Dean throws his arms up in exasperation. “Fuckin’ angels,” he mutters as his hands slap back down on his thighs. Sam peeks between their two faces, struggling to ignore the devil only a few feet to his right.

“It seems that the cage door didn’t fully close after extracting Sam,” Cas continues.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Dean bellows, twisting to give the angel his full attention.

“It means,” Cas projects with sass and narrowing of his eyes at Dean’s brash interruption, “Lucifer is not fully cut off from this dimension. He’s opened a portal in Sam’s head which we think he is using until he finds a way to unlock the cage once more.” With his sentence complete, Cas turns his eyes on Sam, who is blushing and avoiding looking at the end of the bed where Lucifer is making lewd gestures at him with his split tongue.

Dean glances between Cas’ posture and Sam’s flushed cheeks before setting his brother with a stare of parental proportions. “What the hell, Sam?”

“Blaming the victim will not help this situation, Dean,” Castiel cuts in. Sam screws his face up in indignation at being called a victim, but enjoys the defense nonetheless.

“I’m not,” Dean starts out strong and loud, but upon seeing Sam jump lowers his volume for attempting contrition, “blaming the victim. I’m just confused why Sybil over here didn’t give us a heads up.”

“Can you blame him?” Lucifer chimes in, causing Sam’s eyes to gaze in his direction. When Sam looks back at his brother, Dean’s looking back with a horrified expression. He looks away, ashamed.

“Sammy?” Dean speaks uncharacteristically smooth and calming. “Is this why…” his words falter, unable to finish the thought, but the way his hand gestures up and down towards Sam clues him into the end of the sentence.

“Yeah,” Sam answers, knowing if he waited for Dean to shove out the sentence by force, they’d be here all day.

Dean’s eyes widen, then soften. “Why didn’t you say something?” he asks, voice somewhere between gruff accusation and calm realization.

Sam looks guiltily from Lucifer to Dean to Cas, struggling on his own words caught in his throat, unable to explain away what he’d done to himself. Lucifer grins wickedly, “Yeah, Sammy. Why not go to your brother for help?”

Cas, thankfully, comes to his rescue. “Dean, we must hurry to cut off the portal Lucifer is using.”


	4. Chapter 4

“Where is the portal?”

“Inside Sam’s head.”

“How, exactly, do you propose we get to it?”

“We? Dean, I must insist I do this mission alone. I do not wish to make you collateral damage.”

“Would you stop talking about me like I’m not here?” Lucifer whines from on the bed where he’s curled next to Sam’s leg.

After a glare to Lucifer, Sam clears his throat and says loudly, “Dean.” His brother nearly growls before turning to give Sam his full attention, his posture agitated and tight. “Just let Cas do this. I’ll be fine,” he enunciates trying to give Dean some confidence.

“No,” Dean cuts over Sam. “No one’s Saving Private Ryan without me.” 

Cas rolls his eyes and tilts his head with an I’m So Done With Your Shit face before crossing the room and touching his fingers to both the Winchester’s foreheads, teleporting them all into Sam’s subconscious. 

A few seconds of blurry haziness and stumbly legs pass before a familiar room appears before them. “We’re not in Kansas anymore, are we?” Dean asks, peering at the stacks of books in various places laying about Bobby’s living room.

The room itself is significantly bigger to make room for more shelves, as if Sam subliminally attempted organization. There are end tables all over that seem to hold important memories, such as a framed portrait of Jess standing in front of their apartment building at Stanford and a snapshot of the brothers when they were much younger with Dean giving Sammy a piggy back ride entering the primate house of some zoo.

“We had better start searching,” Cas interrupts the brothers who were running their hands over the pages of the books closest to them, Dean in utter awe and Sam in slight confusion.

“What are we looking for?” Sam asks, snapping out of his reverie.

“I’m not sure,” Cas replies, pulling a copy of Things Jess and I Planned For The Future close and cracking it open. “I suspect it will be an item in your memories that has significant meaning. In order to destroy the portal, we must destroy the memory.” 

“Helpful,” Dean announces, dragging a copy of Mother’s Day and Why It Sucks.

“Dean, stop,” Sam demands, grabbing the book from his brother to reshelf it harshly. Some of the loose pages and cliff notes fall to the floor. “You don’t get to rummage around in my head. This is private stuff.”

“Dude, I raised you since you were six months old. What could possibly be so private you don’t want me to read it?”

Sam, flustered, turns to look at the shelf before pulling off a book entitled Fantasies I Don’t Want My Brother to Know About.

“Clowns or midgets?”

Sam huffs and rolls his eyes, managing a very tired yet still effective Bitch Face. Dean smirks proudly as he watches Sam reshelf the book.

“Sam, what is this tradition about pulling a garter off with your teeth?” Cas calls from the sofa where he’s made himself comfortable with the lily white, lacy wedding photo-album style book on his lap. “Perhaps this garter is an important item?”

“Cas,” Dean growls exasperatedly, turning on his angel.

“Yes, Dean?” Cas looks up from the book with serious, questioning eyes.

“Tact, brother, you should probably learn it.”

All three men turn in unison to look at the archway between Bobby’s living room and kitchen where Lucifer is standing with a book in his arms. “Sam, this is some pretty heavy reading,” Lucifer comments, holding up his book, It’s Tuesday…Again blazed across the cover.

The angel blinks pointedly and suddenly all three of them are plastered against various walls, sending books and photographs flying every direction, scattering like leaves as they fall to the floor with assorted thumps and crashes. “See, I thought I had imagination,” Lucifer continues, tapping his fingernails across the cover of his book. “But apparently I’ve got nothing on Gabriel.” He gently sets the book down on an end table before glancing up at Sam. “I probably should have known, though, what with all those memories you shared with me before the big leap.”

“Shut up,” Sam sputters. His shoulders sag and he tries to curl in on himself. He’s shaking his head, as if trying to rid himself of the angel’s painful words.

“Sam, make him stop,” Dean calls from across the room where he’s pinned. “He’s in your head. He has to do what you say!”

“I think it’s time for you to go now,” Lucifer swings his attention to the eldest Winchester, giving a curt twiddle of his fingers before a loud snap and Dean disappears.

“No,” Sam screams, recapturing Lucifer’s attention.

“Sammy, Sammy, Sammy,” the devil songs as he saunters closer to his vessel. “Why would you let them talk you into this? Don’t you love me anymore?” He’s standing directly in front of Sam, watching the way Sam clenches his eyes closed and the little hitches to his breath as he fights against invisible hands. “Don’t you miss it just being me and you, all alone? We could do it again,” he promises, reaching a finger out to brush the hair from Sam’s forehead.

Sam flinches back, cracking his head on the wall behind him. The ground begins to rumble slightly and an odd sort of wind picks up, knocking some books off the shelf – A History of Violence Against My Person, 1001 Things I Would Eat if I Ever Make It Out Alive, It Will Always End Here: A Pop Up Book. The sounds and smells of burgers frying in Bobby’s kitchen waft over the group. The pop up book lands on a page depicting Nick already dead on the ground with Lucifer in Sam’s body, flexing out his silvery wings while Dean watches, his brothers’ face a mass of horrified, shielding his eyes from the brightness of the light emitted from Sam’s beautiful wings.

“Sam,” Cas calls from across the room. “You must stop this. Take control of your head.”

Lucifer’s nasty cackle fills the air as he watches all of the books come tumbling off the shelves opening to various pages, some of them playing sound once opened to the desired memory.

“…I want you to lose my number. You understand me?” comes Bobby’s voice from a tattered, sad looking stack of note cards.

“You’re a monster, Sam,” Dean’s voice calls from an old cell phone.

“Make the gun float to you, psychic boy,” Azazel taunts out of his father’s mouth on Bobby’s TV that flickered on, replaying that awful memory.

“We’re just getting started, Castiel. Sammy and I, we’ve got business to finish.” Lucifer is smiling over the noises of Sam’s memories as they fill the room, the mysterious wind picking up and fluttering pages of the books and knocking over pictures and knickknacks of the various memories on the end tables. The devil steps lightly over the papers and books as they scatter to the floor, getting closer to the angel. “So, why don’t you just wait outside?” he grins, snapping his fingers and the angel disappears.

Lucifer begins to laugh, much like before, adding to the cacophony within Sam’s head as the memories swim and take over. The sound begins to distort, with all the memories starting to get hazy at the edges from all the stimulation. The wind picks up, and the lights get brighter, simultaneously drowning everything out until all he can hear is the TV static.

_“You ever read about the Balinese way of dreaming?”_

And with that simple line, Sam’s attention is focused on the television. “I remember this,” he whispers, trying to ground himself.

_“They got this whole system they call ‘dream skills’. So, if you have a nightmare, for instance like falling, right?”_

_“Yeah.”_

_“Instead of screaming and getting nuts, you say, okay, I’m gonna make up my mind that I fall into a magic world where I can get something special, like a poem or song. They get all their art literature from dreams. Just wake up and write it down. Dream skills.”_

_“And what if they meet a monster in their dream? Then what?”_

_“They turn their back on it. Takes away its energy, and it disappears.”_

Sam can hardly remember when or where he saw Nightmare on Elm Street last. It was playing somewhere, probably Bobby's house, maybe a motel in Nebraska, possibly Reverend Jim's. But he remembers being scared out of his mind and Dean laughing until he realized Sam was really scared and Dean told him the exact same thing: monsters can't hurt you if you don't believe they can. He still had made Dean watch him in his sleep for a week anyway.

Sam’s vision seems to widen back to his full reality as the last of the line is delivered. Lucifer is standing in front of him, devilish grin on his face. The room is calm about them, the last of the papers seem to have settled on the floor and all the crackled memories that had sprung to life have quieted. “Whatcha thinking about, Sammy?” he asks.

Over the years, Sam has been thrown against walls and other hard surfaces by supernatural forces more than a few times. He’s gotten to know the pressure of unknown limbs that hold him in place during these sorts of events. Perhaps, if he were to search, there would be a book entitled Oh, Not Again! somewhere on the shelves of his library.

These invisible hands that hold him seem frail in comparison.

Upon the realization, Sam straightens himself up, finding it much easier than he anticipated. The horrified look on Lucifer’s face makes it more than worth the effort.

“There’s only one item of importance that you would know about,” Sam states. “And if you think I wouldn’t want to get rid of that painful memory, you’re sadly mistaken.”

Sam plows past Lucifer’s shoulder to the desk by the fireplace, opening the drawer and dragging out the horned God amulet.

“Well done, Sammy. I gotta say, I wasn’t expecting you to figure it out so soon.” Lucifer is smiling, nervously trying to cover his fear. Sam frowns, clutching the pendant in his hand tightly, allowing the metal ridges to cut into his palm. “Go on, do it. Make me _disappear_.”

“Dean threw this away. If it doesn’t mean anything to him, why should it mean anything to me?” Sam shouts, angry with Lucifer’s taunts. The rushing wind returns, roaring the fireplace to life. Sam tosses the amulet into the flames and turns back to the devil just in time to see the last of the arrogance literally melt away. The screeching is harder to ignore as the angel dissolves into a puddle at Sam’s feet.


End file.
